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Fracture Processes in Granite Blocks Under Blast Loading

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Abstract

The fracturing of six granite cubes (400 × 400 × 400 mm3) in response to blast loading was investigated using a combination of data collected from strain gauges and generated by digital image correlation (DIC) of pictures captured using a high-speed camera. This instrumentation permits the observation of the crack initiation, crack opening velocity, fracture pattern, full-field strain variation, and fragment movement at the cube’s surface. In each experiment, an explosive charge was positioned at the center of the block in a vertical drill hole. Two charge weights, 6 g and 12 g, of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) were used. Using the high-speed camera, dominant vertical cracks were found to initiate on the surface of the cubes within 250 µs of the charge detonation. Two or three dominant vertical cracks appeared in specimens with a 12 g charge, while a single dominant vertical crack came into view in specimens with a 6 g charge. In addition, a single dominant horizontal crack was observed in all specimens, irrespective of charge weight. The maximum concentration of strain obtained from a DIC analysis agreed well with the dominant cracks and fracture patterns observed in the specimens. By combining the results from the strain gauges and the results from the DIC analysis for the specimen with a 12 g charge, the first crack initiation was found to occur at 67 µs after detonation. The crack opening velocities were determined using a boundary identification method and ranged from 5.0 to 7.6 m s−1, whereas the observed in-plane fragment velocities were slightly less. These experiments may contribute to a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of the rock fracture by blasting.

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Abbreviations

Δε xx, Δε yy :

Strain errors for the x component and y component

ε 1st, ε cr :

First principal strain and critical strain

α, β :

Crack direction angles

θ :

Angle of fragment movement

V f :

Fragment velocity

Z, ΔZ :

Object distance and out-of-plane displacement

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the University Centre in Svalbard. The authors wish to thank Dr. G. Gilbert at the University Centre in Svalbard for valuable inputs to manuscript, and Mr. C. L. He, Mr. Z. Y. Cheng, Mr. Z. S. Zhou and Mr. Feng at the Beijing Institute of Technology for the support in performing the experiments at the State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Arctic Technology, The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Longyearbyen, Norway

    Li Yuan Chi, Zong Xian Zhang & Arne Aalberg

  2. Department of Geoscience and Petroleum, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway

    Li Yuan Chi & Charlie C. Li

  3. Oulu Mining School, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Zong Xian Zhang

  4. State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

    Jun Yang

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  1. Li Yuan Chi
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Correspondence to Li Yuan Chi.

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Chi, L.Y., Zhang, Z.X., Aalberg, A. et al. Fracture Processes in Granite Blocks Under Blast Loading. Rock Mech Rock Eng 52, 853–868 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-018-1620-0

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